


To the Damned and Dearly Departed

by sidsaid



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A little gore, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Blood Play, Drugs, Dubious Consent, F/M, Fantasy AU, Intoxication, Oral Sex, Queen of the Damned AU, Sex, Smut, Vampires, Virgin Rey, abstaining, but they are vampires so you know the drill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 06:07:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28466547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidsaid/pseuds/sidsaid
Summary: Vampire Princess Rey wants for nothing, yet her nights are filled with partying, unapproved company and blood laced with every drug under the sun. So when she hears of the return of the petrified Vampire Prince to her palace in paradise, her interests become otherwise preoccupied.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 5
Kudos: 80





	To the Damned and Dearly Departed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ReyloWarrior](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReyloWarrior/gifts), [avidvampirehunter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avidvampirehunter/gifts), [elemie89](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elemie89/gifts), [Audrey4ever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Audrey4ever/gifts), [thoseindarkness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoseindarkness/gifts).



> Hi friends. This is basically a Queen of the Damned universe AU, and is a gift for my favourite wives. I have definitely taken creative liberties, because I wanted to. LOL. Also don’t complain about ‘Prince’ being capitalized, I do what I want. I finished this 2 months ago, so I’m sorry for not posting before lol.  
> Please enjoy!!

The blood was sweet on her tongue and Rey smiled at the faint taste of ecstasy that came with it. 

She was messy as the boat rocked. Arterial blood dripped down her chin, then she giggled as Kaydel reached for her, licking the spilled blood from her face. 

Of the three meals they’d had that evening, there were enough drugs in their systems to have killed them if they’d been human. Instead they were all giddy, an approximate form of intoxication that made the world spin, even more so because they were boating across the Venice lagoon.

Rey dropped the human into the bottom of the boat and she turned to look over the side at the black water, entranced by the foam that the boat churned up. 

‘Can you imagine if we let the Duke feed from one of these?’ Rey questioned aloud, then turned to look at her two friends. ‘Can you imagine him giggling?’ she added.

Jannah laughed, feeling the pulse of the man who now lay in the centre of the boat. She nicked her thumb on an incisor and rubbed the drop of blood over the wound at his neck, then sat him up, and poured something that smelled like a sedative and antibiotic down his throat. 

‘Aww you’re being nice tonight?’ Kaydel groaned. ‘You could have just thrown him in the water.’ 

The guard driving the boat snorted and Jannah stood, taking a position next to him before leaning against his shoulder. ‘That’s how you end up with vampire hunters at your door and two hundred years of isolation in Switzerland.’ 

Rey shuddered. ‘Not Switzerland.’

‘Exactly,’ Jannah responded. 

The boat slowed as they approached the island and Rey hopped out, being supported by a guard who stood on the dock. The other guard climbed out and Jannah took control of the small speedboat.

‘Call me when you want to escape again, we’ll pick you up.’ Jannah shouted with a wave, and they pulled back out, Kaydel calling her goodbyes and blowing kisses. 

There was a firm hand on her shoulder and Rey smiled, half-dazed as she was led up the stone steps toward the palace front. 

‘Shall I escort you to your rooms, ma’am?’ The guard asked. Rey simply nodded and closed her eyes as they walked. 

A delicate hand took hers and she smiled as she was sat at the edge of the bed; her feet and hands then soaked with warm water and then her clothes removed and replaced with a silk nightgown. 

‘Would you like a nightcap, ma’am?’ A soft voice asked.

‘I’m fine Zoe,’ Rey answered and slipped into bed before the covers were tucked around her just as the sun began to rise.

When she awoke in the evening, it was to a letter at her bedside. Rey stretched as she reached for it and saw the Duke’s familiar handwriting across the front. 

~*~

_ Dear Renatta, _

_ I am not due back from the mainland for two weeks, though the Prince has arrived in my stead. The council has decided he should remain home.  _

_ Regards, _

_ D.K. _

~*~

The words made Rey blink and she sat in her bed as she read them over again. The Prince? The only prince she knew of was the prince the island she currently resided on, Palazzo del Principe, was named for, and the Prince who had been absent from this palace for five hundred years. 

His story had been one of the first the Duke had told Rey when she’d been turned, and she remembered it well. The Prince was the saviour of modern vampire society, though Rey had always wondered if his actions belonged to a power-hungry fool, rather than a hero. Who, other than a fool would be selfless enough to drink the last drop of the tyrant Vampire King’s blood, and curse themselves to an eternity of petrification? 

Rey had tried to ask the Duke about the Prince, but all he would provide was that the Duke had been his squire and was still under his employ, even after all these centuries. The only other place she could go for answers was the library, and even though the Duke had consistently been adding to the collection, there was only a single biography about the Prince. And it contained nothing much beyond his sacrifice. 

The Vampire High Council had decided to send him over after all these years, but why?

‘Your Highness?’

It was usual for Zoe to appear as soon as Rey’s toes hit the ground, though she was early, likely hearing Rey move around in her bed.

‘I’m up,’ Rey called before actually getting up. 

She looked over the letter again as Zoe dressed her, and brought out a light breakfast of chilled blood. When Zoe returned to take the glass away, Rey asked her to stop with a hand.

‘Has the Prince arrived yet?’ 

The maid nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am, he was brought in just before you woke. Will you need anything else from me, ma’am?’

Rey shook her head, fingers turning over the letter. The drugs had worn off leaving Rey with a strange lightheadedness, despite the morning’s glass of blood. Even if the sensation didn’t last long, Rey liked that feeling of being slightly out of control. Especially when she was stuck inside the palace so often and for so long. At least when she went out while the Duke was away, the maids and the guards could pretend that she hadn’t been off to the mainland with only a single guard as company. She supposed it was a secret she’d spent years making sure never became known. 

It was easy to follow her nose, to figure out which new vampires had visited, most likely to drop the Prince off, and it was her nose she followed as she stepped deep within the catacombs of the palace. Eventually she reached a ballroom deep within the grounds and found a large ballroom lined floor to ceiling with white marble. 

At its end she saw him. 

He was sitting. Rey hadn’t expected that. She had expected him to have been petrified with his teeth bared, still drinking from the King. Eternally drinking. Not still, solid, dressed in a loose shirt and trousers, completely stone. 

She approached, moving across the marble floor until she stood in front of him. He wasn’t much shorter than her standing, and looking into his face, she could see the strong set of his jaw, the curve of his lips, the long line of his prominent nose and the waves of hair that cascaded to his shoulders. There was no colour to it, but Rey imagined that it was as black as a raven’s wing. 

He was beautiful and she smiled at that fact. 

‘Hello,’ she murmured. ‘I’m Rey.’ Then she began to circle him, looking at every curve and line in his body that wasn’t blocked by the chair he had been sat in. A muscled pectoral peeked at the edge of his shirt and his thighs were thick, knotted with muscle. Perhaps he had won against their maker using nothing more than brute strength. 

‘It must be strange to be home.’ She considered and took a seat on the floor in front of him, crossing her legs under her. ‘They’ve kept you on the mainland for five hundred years, so you’ve missed a lot.’ 

He, of course, did not move, and Rey watched him silently, wondering what it would be like to be frozen in time. Though then she guessed he could not hear or see her. For all intents and purposes, he was dead. 

‘I think, as the Duke’s charge, I’m obligated to say that he has taken very good care of your affairs. Although, considering you’re practically dead, and he’s spent much more time with you than he has with me, I suppose I’m jealous.’ She smiled gently, her nail scratching at the thin grouting between the white tiles. ‘Maybe the next time the Duke goes to the mainland, I should make him take me. Or is your arrival a sly way of the Vampire Council saying we are to be trapped here forever?’ 

His stone face was still and Rey sighed softly, standing once more. She approached him, taking her fill of his features again. Rey wasn’t sure how long she was there for, it could have been hours considering how time flowed for the undead, though as she stared, a silent melancholy built and echoed in her chest. He was just alone as she was, and even with the ability to move, to feed, to live, Rey felt like the only difference in their loneliness was that he’d been doing it for longer. She was just as sad and alone as she had been as an orphaned mortal, just now she lived in a palace. 

It was only when Rey noticed her fingers trailing over his that she stepped back and moved to leave the hall, turning back only briefly as if to check that he truly was frozen. 

She felt overheated, which was unusual for her and she cursed at herself as she sped her gait. It was that telltale stirring in her lower stomach that she had spent almost a century trying to dull the voracity of, though usually it was triggered by other things: Exceptionally delicious blood, actual nudity, her own fingers inside of her. It was almost depressing. She was now aroused by what was practically a statue. 

When she’d gotten back to her rooms, Rey reached for her phone and quickly sent a message to her usual bodyguard, Santine, to ask after her plans for the upcoming days. 

She knew that the Duke would not approve, but despite the rules, Rey had gotten a taste for blood straight from the source. In Sicily there were blood-letting parties, where mortals shared blood as some sort of ritual. She could drink to her heart’s delight, taste all manner of mortals and leave no trail. In Rome, the Vampire capital, she was brought offerings. Other vampires offered their familiars, and they willingly came to her, knowing that with the favour of the Princess, their desire for immortality would be expedited. Though here, in Venice, with its cobbled streets and maze of canals, the mortals tasted best. Even if she could never have a familiar of her own; never turn a human nor drink one to death; never be fed from; never be bled; never be fucked without the Vampire Council’s approval, she could have this. This one escape.

There were four of them in the end who went to the mainland, the night still in full swing and the sound of merriment drifting across the lagoon. Rey was passed a joint and she sucked on it, feeling her head spin for a brief moment before her blood burned the drug away.

They jumped from party to party drinking their fill of intoxicated humans and then taking their time to get through the alcohol and drugs themselves. It was easy, in that state, for Rey to convince one of the guards that he could touch her, that he wouldn’t get into trouble for it. She’d kissed him, drunk on the night, drunk on the cornucopia of drugs they’d consumed with and without blood. It didn’t matter that the feeling was brief before their immortal blood burned the substances away. And Rey had wanted to. She’d wanted to feel his fingers slip under her skirt and pluck at her like an instrument, while their lips met messily together.

‘You know he would kill me for this?’ he said as Rey closed her eyes, nails digging into the shoulder of his jacket. 

‘Who? The Duke?’ she questioned, head spinning as she climbed to her peak and the drugs slicked through her system, trying to burn away in her veins. 

Rey didn’t think so. It had been the Duke who had plucked the five year old Rey from outside The Royal Waterloo Hospital while her mother died of Spanish Flu inside. He had been the one to nurse the feverish and vulnerable child back to health, and when Rey thought of her first memory, it was of his bright blue gaze staring back at her, cautious and worried. Rey considered that even if he knew she did this; ran away whenever she could, he would not begrudge her, despite it being the last thing she should be doing. She doubted he’d kill for this. 

He shook his head. ‘The Prince.’ 

She narrowed her eyes at him. Rey hadn’t heard that one before. The Prince? The one who had been petrified for nearing 500 years? ‘I’m sure he’s too busy being a statue.’ 

‘But you’re his claim.’ 

Rey snorted and pulled away, trying not to fight the war she had with herself about sacrificing her own pleasure. This was what she had been limited to; being covertly finger fucked, and even then, if a drop of her blood was spilled, more than just a singular guard would be killed. ‘Nobody can claim me, least of all a dead prince.’ 

A hand took her elbow, and Satine was there grinning wide, her teeth covered in blood. ‘Let’s go, sunrise is coming.’ 

Rey followed, anger filling her. If his words were true, if the Prince laid claim to her, even before she’d been alive, even before she’d been turned, then it wasn’t something she was going to take lightly. Not after everything else the Vampire Council had decided for her. At the very least, her life should be her own. 

They were still intoxicated when they got back to the Palace just before sunrise, and Rey bypassed her rooms and went straight to the ballroom. 

The Prince sat at the end of the room, stoic and silent, and Rey stumbled to him, rage filling her to bursting. He seemed to catch her when she reached him, though Rey realised it was her imagination, and she sat in his lap with a grimace as she found her bearings. 

‘Let me get this straight with you. I am not yours.’ She attempted to poke him in the chest, but merely bent her own finger back. ‘You can’t have me...without my express permission.’ Her eyes lifted to his face, scanning his features and she felt herself lose words as she looked at him absently. Her drug-addled mind fell over itself to speak, but the first thing she ended up saying was; ‘you are quite beautiful, did you know Prince?’ Then she lowered her voice, her lips pressing against his ear as she whispered. ‘Even though I don’t agree with your claim on me, I wouldn’t say no to something else.’ She sighed and her arms draped over his shoulders. ‘If you’re my only chance not to be a virgin...’ Her head rolled against his forehead and she met his eyes, her nose pressed against his, ‘...I suppose I’ll allow it.’ 

‘You should ask permission before you climb into other people’s laps,’ a voice murmured.

Rey blinked and looked up to see hazel eyes framed by thick lashes staring back at her. Moles scattered ivory skin that looked paler due to the waves of raven hair that cascaded down his face. Her throat caught and he smiled. Hands moved to her waist and Rey screeched, attempting to get up but falling backwards off the vampire’s lap. 

Then she was blinking again and the world seemed to have righted itself, because the Prince was frozen once more, and she was conscious, slightly more sober than she had been.

Rey sat on the marble floor for some time, staring at the living statue, waiting and watching to see if he would move. But he did not, so she got up, and hurried to her room.

~

Even though Rey was a vampire, her body still ached like she wasn’t. It was likely from excessive blood consumption, and Rey knew she had to abstain from feeding for at least the next two days as her body dealt with the overload of blood as well as the substances that weren’t created for a vampire’s body to handle. 

She rubbed at her face and found herself diving head first into a bathtub set by her maid, trying to recall the events of the night as she lay underwater, a finger and thumb gently drawing a soothing release of pleasure out of her tired body. By the time she had two fingers curled within her, her thoughts had fallen to the frozen man in the hall several floors beneath her. 

It was possible, she supposed, that he did have a claim on her. She was the Princess, ordained by the Vampire Court once she’d been turned. The Duke had smelled the sanctity of her blood when she’d been a child, and so she had been brought up in his house, under his banners, all for her to be turned on her twenty-first birthday. The only blood she had spilled since had been on that day, when a pinprick of her blood had been shared among the old vampires who made up the council. Then she’d been titled Princess Renatta, as those who had come before her had. Like the Prince had all those centuries ago.

Perhaps because the Prince held the highest status in vampire society after killing the King and taking his power and throne, she was his prize. And Rey knew the thought was meant to chill her, but she only sighed, because it meant that the only person who had express permission to drink from her and to touch her intimately had been turned to stone five hundred years ago. 

Rey supposed in retrospect she had not needed to accept this fate. She likely could have left the Duke behind to live a normal mortal life, and yet she had nodded and smiled, accepting a place in the home of the man who loved her like her mother had. 

She stepped from the bath to dress, though as soon as she did, she found herself falling asleep at the end of her bed, despite the moon being high in the sky. 

It wasn’t a surprise that she dreamed of the Prince. Alive, or at least to vampiric standards, and sitting in the chair she had last seen him in. He watched her as she paced in front of him, eyes not giving much away, even if she herself felt like she was caught by the sun, ready to burn into cinders.

‘You are not helping my compulsory abstinence at all, Prince.’ 

He smirked and she approached him with a frown, stopping in front of him. 

‘Are you pretending to be innocent in this?’ 

‘Am I the aggressor?’ He asked. The question deepened her frown and he shifted in the chair, his elbow leaning against one of its arms. ‘It is fun to watch you panic. I’ve not had much company in a long while, but you definitely make up for the silence.’ 

Rey swallowed, her eyes moving from his face to the rest of him. He was very compelling with very little effort. 

‘It is better this way,’ he murmured, looking at her carefully. ‘When the King reigned, blood like yours was a party favour. To be shared without recompense.’ 

She was ready to argue and then stopped herself, eyes caught in his and they were full of melancholy. ‘Oh,’ fell from her lips. Blood like hers. Blood like his. 

He reached for her hand, turning her wrist over to face upwards and he smiled gently. ‘Nothing is forever. Rules, dynasties, traditions. Even the Vampire High Council will not be forever. The future is yours to make or unmake.’ 

Rey swallowed, glancing down to their hands to see his fingers eclipse her own. His touch was gentle and he seemed to mean the words he was saying, despite Rey thinking they felt so far from reality.

‘You should not have sacrificed yourself, perhaps then things would be different.’

He chuckled and let go. ‘Yes, we would still have a tyrannical King.’ 

Rey woke up and without another thought, she was making her way to the ballroom. She closed the oak doors behind her and leaned against them as she looked at the Prince from a distance. 

‘I read in your biography,’ she began, approaching him slowly on bare feet. ‘That you were born to a Duke and Duchess in Saxony.’ She stopped, looking into his face before she took a seat on the floor, her chin resting against her knees. ‘It must be strange, you’ve spent more time as a statue than alive.’ Rey looked to the ground, thinking of how cloistered her own life was. ‘I suppose if you were to wake, I’d at least be free.’ She hesitated. ‘I want to be free.’ 

She glanced at her watch and then looked back at him. ‘I should probably go.’ Though as she walked out, she swore she could sense his eyes on her, but then she supposed they were: Frozen and fixed.

~

Rey went to sleep before the sun came up. She’d been tired, or as tired as a vampire could possibly be, though it was restlessness more than anything.

He was there in her dreams again, watching her as he had before, a slow smile turning at his lips, and a hand held out to her, calling her to him. She moved, her hand slipping into his and he sat her comfortably in his lap. Their eyes met and she was silenced as she held his stare. It felt strangely real, even though she distantly knew that this was a dream of her own making. 

‘You don’t want me to claim you, yet you come to me willingly?’ He questioned. ‘Are you a vampire of indecision?’ 

‘Have I a choice?’

He nodded. ‘Of course. I am petrified, am I not? The council could not harm you for breaking any rules and customs currently still in place.’

‘The council could harm the Duke instead,’ she murmured, meeting his hazel eyes. ‘He was your squire, no? You would not see him harmed either.’

The Prince was silent, a shadow passing over his face, and Rey reached, a hand lifting his cheek to look into her face. His jaw shifted as he looked at her. ‘Would you claim me if you woke? If the choice was only yours?’

‘Yes,’ he responded easily. ‘You would get what you desire so badly.’

She swallowed. ‘What is that?’ she questioned, her voice low.

‘Satisfaction,’ he murmured. His hand moved from the arm of the chair to slide across her thigh, and beneath her skirt. 

Her eyes stayed focussed on his, even as she began to tremble. Her thumb drew across his chin, grazing his full lower lip. She knew it would be a simple request to ask him to pierce her flesh, and she supposed if the claim were true, he had permission – they both had permission. 

‘It’s a shame that this is a dream then,’ she responded, slipping from his lap and swallowing, despite the heavy roiling in her stomach and the ache in her breasts. 

It was still daytime when Rey woke up, wetness slick between her thighs. Dreams like this had been mostly foreign to her, no matter how much she wished she could dream away her own virginity. Now, she supposed, reality was catching up with her. 

She considered going down to the barracks at the edge of the island, and convincing a guard to provide her with some momentary satisfaction, but it almost felt dirty with the Prince on the island now. As if she would be making him a voyeur to her almost rule-breaking. 

Her hand found its way between her legs and she coaxed an orgasm from herself, thoughts solidly on the animated version of the Prince her mind had created. It was more satisfying when she thought of him and after she stared at the ceiling of her room, counting down the minutes to sunset. 

After over a century alive, it was easy to tell when the sun finally departed and Rey got up, wrapping her robe over her nightgown and hurried off to see the Prince. She didn’t hesitate, and she wasn’t slow about her approach. Instead she stopped in front of him, eyes hovering over every inch of him. She felt herself shudder as she looked at his fingers – one was almost as big as two of hers. 

‘You can’t hear me, can you?’ She asked with irritation. ‘Perhaps you might have been able to not long after you’d been petrified, but now, after all these centuries, you’ve completely closed down, haven’t you?’ She frowned. ‘I don’t like that you’re in my dreams. It’s worse because then I almost believe there is this reality where my desires matter.’ Rey sighed, running her fingers through her loose hair before she knelt in front of him, her hands falling to his stone knees. 

She closed her eyes, trying to imagine that she wasn’t alone in this room. Eventually she stood again and sat in his lap, her arms reaching to wrap around his neck. She tried to feel something, anything, without having to drink four pints of blood laced with every drug known to man. 

Rey heard footsteps outside of the door and slid from his lap, sighing as she walked away, and returned to her rooms. 

The night was spent in a sombre mood as she read through the single tome the library held about the Prince. He’d spent most of his immortal life in the King’s court as his most trusted advisor once he’d been titled. It had been the Prince who had organised the coup after two hundred years of his own immortality, and him who had made the sacrifice. 

She drank a small glass of chilled B positive and laid in bed, trying to imagine watching the sunrise, before she drifted to sleep. 

‘You want me to claim you, don’t you?’ He smiled, the expression cocky enough to annoy Rey, but then denying it would be a lie.

‘If this is your way of asking if I want you to fuck me, then yes.’ 

He blinked and tilted his head upwards. ‘Why do you like watching me so much?’ he asked when she didn’t approach, but simply stared. His expression shifted to confusion as his gaze dropped to her shaking hands. ‘Do I frighten you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I want you,’ she answered. ‘Not just because I’m allowed to.’ 

He smiled. ‘You’re a lot like me, that’s probably why.’

She frowned. ‘How?’

There was a loud noise and Rey blinked awake, groggy. It was still morning and it took little more than a moment for her hearing to sharpen. She could hear smashing, like a window breaking, and then booted feet. 

‘Zoe?’ Rey called as quietly as she could. Her feet took her towards the servant’s door, and she heard screams. 

Rey’s eyes scattered about the room. The Duke had never taught her how to wield much more than a bow and arrow for archery, but she kept those in the games room. Her blood was not meant to be drawn, so she kept guards not weapons. 

Another crash, closer, and Rey could smell blood. Human blood. Vampire blood. More shouts, yet nobody came for her. She shuffled through her closet, wincing at the noise she was making, and took out a sword that had been there since she had taken occupancy in these rooms. 

Pushing open the main door, she could see that the window shutters were all still closed, drenching the palace in darkness. She tried to move quietly in the dark, though it did not last long, as she found herself against five men who were decked in armour, and their machetes and wooden pikes dripped blood across the stone floor. 

They approached with determination, and Rey sensed that they had come for her. To kill her.

She ran quickly, though despite being faster, the humans seemed to be everywhere. The sword in her hand poorly blocked a pike, and she felt her wrist twist; her grip loosening. Rey ran as defence, still running when she felt a bolt hit her shoulder and a steady trickle of blood coat her back and side. 

Even though she knew her own body, the obsession everyone had with her blood was almost enough to convince her that the spilling of any could cause its own carnage, yet it did not. It spilled like any other’s would and she ran harder, thinking to barricade herself with the Prince. 

There was evidence of dead guards everywhere, and Rey feared the worst as she finally flew down the stairs to the ballroom, bolted the doors and then ran towards the Prince. Her hand pressed against his, like she was asking him to lend her strength, and she closed her eyes tight as the thuds of the men attempting to smash the doors in mirrored the steady drip of her blood on the marble floor. 

It was her hope that the rest of the guards would come before the men broke through, though the doors crumpled open soon after, and three men entered. She held the sword in her other hand, keeping her grip strong as they approached. Their faces were grim and when the biggest stopped in front of her, his pike held out, he looked at her without fear. 

‘Why are you here?’ She asked, but got no response. 

A strike came at her and she blocked it, using her strength to hold her still. Two came at her at once then, and she blocked one but was slashed by a knife at her throat, her blood splashing against the Prince. She couldn’t look back at him as another attack came – a knife at her stomach – and she stumbled backward, landing in the Prince’s lap. 

There was something this time and she could smell it. They’d dipped the knife in nightshade and she could feel herself beginning to fade into unconsciousness, the men dimming in front of her as she felt hands on her. The last thing she saw, before it all went dark, was blood. So much blood. 

~

It was early afternoon. 

A stiff breeze blew through her bedroom from the open, but sun-blocked window, and Rey blinked, searching for and expecting pain but finding none. She couldn’t smell her own blood, and the pink nightgown she was dressed in was clean, so Rey breathed out in relief. A dream, it had to have been a dream.

She shifted beneath her bed covers to look to the open window, and as she sat up, she froze. 

The Prince stood across from her at her door, his gaze piercing, almost murderous. He wore that same loose white shirt and black pants like in her dream. It had to be a dream again. 

Rey blinked, trying to find the means of escape from this dream, the end of a thread to pull, but nothing. All she could feel was a strange overwhelming arousal flowing within her, and her nipples tightened as he stared at her. She didn’t know what to say when he began towards her, silent. Wordless even when his knees found their way onto the mattress and she fell onto her back as he crowded over her, his breath fanning against her face. 

It didn’t feel like a dream. 

His teeth were bared and Rey felt fear, not like she had from being pursued by the humans, but visceral. It made her unable to move. Yet she only inclined her head, exposing her throat when he ducked lower, and his incisors grazed her neck until a whimper spilled past her lips. 

‘I gave you my blood,’ he said, his teeth still tracing her throat. ‘Would you oblige me by sharing a little of yours?’

Rey blinked, finding herself nodding without considering the implication behind it. Perhaps with how much of her blood had been spilled, it was no longer sacred. Yet the Prince could; he had been sanctioned. 

She groaned when he bit her – her fingers immediately pulling at the material of his shirt as her legs rubbed together. Her eyes rolled as he pressed his tongue over the injury, closing the minor wound, though stray drops soaked into the shoulder strap of her night dress. 

‘I—’ He struggled to speak and when Rey looked to him again, his gaze was at her breasts, at the sight of her nipples pressing hard against the silk there, watching as she trembled. Rey could see his pupils were blown, and his hands were in tight fists, tearing at the bed coverings. 

Rey attempted to clear her own mind, and to ignore the yearning within her as she so often did. ‘Did you change my clothes?’ she asked.

His eyes met hers and he blinked before shaking his head. ‘Your ladies.’

‘Where are they? Did you kill them?’

‘Why would I kill them?’ he asked, his words thick and heavy in his mouth. 

Rey rubbed her knees together as he looked at her and she had to pull her hand away as she absently reached to sate herself. It was like she was high, and Rey thought that he looked to be in the same predicament.

‘I don’t know,’ she panted.

His nose twitched and Rey watched as he moved back down her body. He pushed the silk at her thighs up higher; enough that he could see her unclothed cunt, and Rey knew it was likely glistening and throbbing. 

‘Don’t,’ she started, pulling at the hem. ‘Not if you’ll only look.’ 

The Prince looked at her, his throat bobbing. ‘I’ve thought of little else than this these past few days.’ 

Rey swallowed, knowing what her body wanted, but not prepared to even think it. Everything was a mess. She thought she should be dead. There had been so many dead. So much blood, so many bodies. Where was everyone?

‘Then where are they?’ 

He sighed, seeming to have calmed down somewhat. ‘It is still the afternoon, they are possibly sleeping. They cleaned much of the morning awaiting the return of your father.’ 

‘The Duke is not my father.’

The Prince chuckled. It was an unexpectedly jolly noise, and Rey felt herself fall deeper into her own hole of arousal. ‘He is near enough your father.’ He then held her gaze and looked at her with a question. ‘Why do you not ask, ney demand what you desire from me?’

She blinked, throat growing dry and she wished for a glass of O positive. She knew she was being idiotic about this all. ‘That was truly you in my dreams?’

He nodded and his thumb and forefingers drew circles at her ankles. ‘I felt, I heard, I saw. The King’s blood gave me that at least.’ 

‘Why did you kill him?’

‘I’m sure you have been told the reason many times over. Likely from the Duke too.’

‘You saved him.’

He nodded.

‘You saved us all.’

She sat up, scooting toward him until their faces were inches apart, and she looked into his eclipsed irises. Her gaze skittered over the lush raven waves of his hair, and then to his ripe lips. Her blood had stained them, and there was still traces of it on his lower lip. He did not move, did not hesitate as she looked at him. 

‘I do not need to fear you?’

‘Why would you fear me? I am yours.’ 

‘Mine?’ It caught her off guard. 

‘You freed me, and therefore I am yours. You have made your claim.’ 

‘I freed you?’ 

He smiled wide. ‘Your blood. When you were injured a drop was enough to undo what had been done to me.’

She looked at him carefully, eyes falling to the exposed portion of chest, to his face, to his lips, and she grabbed for his hand, the appendage eclipsing her own. ‘Then if you are mine, touch me.’ 

He did as she instructed with little preamble. His fingers skimmed her skin and then pushed her back to the bed. He lifted her skirt to her stomach; his gaze serious as he did. His lips pressed against her knee then trailed to her thigh and she felt his teeth again, lightly piercing her flesh once more. 

Her blood seemed to give him more strength, made his grip tighter and when he looked at her again, he was silent once more. The realisation that her blood did that confused her, but if their blood was similar, it was no wonder that she felt the same. 

‘Does the Duke know you’re awake?’

‘I suppose he will when he comes back from Rome.’

Rey sighed softly, mostly happy that the old vampire was still among the living. 

‘Did you kill the raiders?’

‘Yes, though I may have gotten carried away. I haven’t had blood in almost 500 years ago.’ 

She bit on her lip, holding back her chuckle and trying not to show how badly she wanted to rub her thighs together to give herself some friction. 

‘Does that arouse you?’

‘Yes.’ 

He licked the blood from her thigh and before Rey could comment, his breath was on her and she stilled, waiting. 

‘If you are mine, do you want me to be yours?’ she asked quietly.

‘Only if it is what you desire.’

Rey lost the ability to speak as his mouth drew to her. He was rough with the use of his tongue, drinking from her, and lapping at the pearls of arousal that continued to spill. Her fingers were tight on the bed and she bit her lower lip by accident; a mistake she hadn’t made in decades. He stilled, smelling the fresh blood and then he was kneeling over her, his fingers replacing where his mouth had previously been, and his mouth, glistening and wet with her, met hers. 

His tongue cooled the injury she had made, drinking more of her blood and then they were kissing, easily and languidly, a finger breaching her and then another.

She moaned into his mouth, arching into him as the heel of his hand rubbed against her clit, and their kiss deepened. Rey held his hand firmly against her, riding against his movements and chasing her eclipse. The two fingers curled and she gasped into his mouth. He smiled briefly before there was another finger and she cried out, eyes falling to the ceiling as she spun in circles, her core wanting to keep him and swallow him whole. 

His kiss drifted across her lips, her cheeks and then to her neck again and Rey blinked her eyes open, meeting his. She could see his hazel irises again, though they were still mostly eclipsed by his pupils. Her hand reached up, her thumb trailing his jaw and she kissed him again, her tongue seeking the remnants of her own blood. His hands tightened on her waist, but he was pushing her away and Rey moaned as he did so. 

‘Please,’ she murmured. 

‘No.’ The word was forced, and she could see his pupils get smaller, the effect of her blood fading more quickly for him than it did for her. Regardless, she desperately wanted more. 

‘Why must you deny me?’ She questioned, draping her limbs over his and grinding her still wet and pulsing cunt against his crotch. He wasn’t hard, much to her disappointment. ‘You already said you had thought of nothing else.’

He shook his head, and his fingers pushed her hair behind her ear. ‘Not yet.’ 

‘But later?’ 

The Prince nodded. ‘Sleep, you lost a lot of blood.’ 

Rey grimaced, though rested against her pillow, looking at him carefully. It was strange having seen him as stone for so long, that now that he was real, she still thought it a fantasy of her own making. 

Eventually she fell asleep, tightly wrapped around the Prince, though when she woke at sunset, he was gone. 

Zoe came to the room first. She looked as if she had been bled almost to death; her hair limp and her fingers trembling. She set a warm cup of blood at Rey’s bedside and jumped when Rey made her consciousness known. 

‘Your Highness, you are better?’ 

Rey nodded and sat up, disappointed at being alone. 

Zoe moved to Rey’s closet and began picking through the belongings before removing a deep purple dress. 

‘You bathed me last night?’ 

She nodded and placing the dress down on the chair, turned back to Rey. ‘The...the Prince, he brought you to us and you...you were injured.’ 

Rey scratched at her wrist, frowning and uncomfortable. If she had been injured, there was no record of it now. ‘How was I injured?’ 

‘Your throat had been cut, and you had lost much of your blood. The Prince fed you his while we bathed and dressed you. It healed you so very quickly. That is how we knew who he was.’ 

She could believe it. There had been an unusual taste in her mouth since she’d first woken. It was like wine; sharp and sweet. 

Rey nodded and stood. There was still blood over the shoulder of the gown, and Zoe stared at it as she removed the article of clothing. Then she grabbed for the purple dress and Rey stepped into it, while Zoe did the zip up at the back. 

‘His Highness would like to see you for breakfast.’ 

Taking up the glass of blood at her bedside, Rey drained it and nodded. Zoe waited for Rey to sit at the vanity and she made quick work of brushing through the princess’ long, tawny hair. She then applied a light dusting of gold to her eyelids and then peach to her lips. 

The younger vampire half-stumbled from the room and Rey looked at her reflection, her fingers gliding across her throat, searching for where the knife had cut her. In comparison to Zoe, she looked as if she’d spent a week in the sun, her skin glowing strangely enough that Rey wondered if seeing the sun was possible for her again.

Eventually she stood and found her way to the breakfast room. It was empty apart from a handful of guards and two table settings. She wasn’t particularly hungry, so turned away the pot of fresh blood proffered to her, and simply sat, wondering why the Prince had left if he intended to ask her to join him for breakfast. 

She almost reached for the daily paper, when she glanced up at light footsteps to see the Prince enter. He wore clothes that must have come from the Duke’s quarters – a deep burgundy banyan over his white shirt – and stopped beside her, his eyes alight. 

‘Come for a walk with me.’

‘Where?’ Rey asked abruptly, trying to refrain from reacting too largely. If she were human, she knew there would be sweat building across her throat. Her stomach hummed steadily and she thought of nothing but sweet friction. 

‘Out in the moonlight.’ 

Though she had a thousand questions, she took his hand and followed him. They were in a darkened corridor, the lamps low and perhaps whatever guards that usually roamed this part of the palace, were likely dead and not yet replaced. Rey swallowed and she felt his lips at her neck. 

‘You smell like lust, princess.’ His hands dropped to her waist.

‘You tease me,’ she murmured. 

Rey closed her eyes and tried to begin walking, but her head warred against her and stuck her to the spot, only sinking into his chest as his hand pulled from her thigh to her bare cunt. A smiling kiss was pressed against her throat and he stroked her, and her legs buckled. She gasped then when she heard footsteps, quickly made distance between them. 

‘You asked for a walk, let’s walk,’ she managed, despite her body screaming at her.

He smiled and followed as they moved through the castle towards the garden doors, which were held open by only one guard. If it weren’t for the Prince, Rey knew she’d have been frightened. She didn’t know how many guards had passed over, nor did she know how long it would be till the Duke arrived. Yet she knew when he arrived, it would not be the same. Right now she had the Prince to herself. 

They walked in relative silence, Rey’s hands clasped in front of her as she looked to the ground. He had promised her later, and her excitement at the prospect of it only increased her arousal and she felt sick and dizzy with it.

‘You want me to bed you, do you not?’ 

Rey closed her eyes. 

‘There is no sin in saying it aloud.’ He looked at her with a smile. ‘Though it may be my blood that is having such an impact on you.’

She looked at him with a raised brow. 

‘If you had not been so badly injured,’ his expression darkened at the words, ‘you would have felt its full influence.’ He reached for her and he took her hand, and a finger traced the vein that trailed blue from her wrist to the inside of her elbow. ‘There is a reason your blood is not meant to be consumed.’ He folded her arm in his and they continued to walk. ‘Perhaps you will change your mind when you are completely free of my influence.’ 

She snorted. ‘Ah, so you are above the influence, then? You say that after you had your fill of me mere hours ago.’ 

‘My fill? You do not know what would sate me.’

Rey felt her throat go dry at his words, her imagination already running with abandon. Her hold tightened on his arm and then she stopped, halting them both. ‘I am too old to play these games with you.’ 

She closed her eyes, freed herself from him and sped her gait, turning from the lamplit path towards the maze garden. Hoping to lose the Prince, though knowing it unlikely, she hurried through the hedges, making the turns to get to the centre. In the few moments of peace, she closed her eyes and felt the moonshine on her face. 

‘You must know I know this path too?’ He asked from behind her. 

Rey turned and looked at him. ‘I don’t think the blood matters. It only...makes this feeling stronger. You saw my dreams, you know what I want.’ She approached him. 

‘You want more?’

‘Please,’ she murmured, half desperate. 

He smirked, though fell gently to his knees. His hands slid up her legs and he went beneath the skirt of her dress. She sighed when his breath hit her and he lifted a leg over his shoulder and drank her down with the same fervour as he had earlier. Her fingers clawed against his shoulder and she groaned aloud, audible enough that it could likely be heard all the way back to the palace. 

Rey felt herself quickly build and then she groaned, her knees weakening for a moment, before the Prince held her still. He stood again, his hands holding her firm at her waist. She could see his mouth glistening in the moonlight, his expression still, and she moved to her toes and pulled him to her, kissing him. 

‘Was it effective?’ 

‘No.’ 

He laughed and Rey nicked her tongue on his incisor. Her blood spilled across her tongue and then his. His grip tightened on her, their kiss deepening, though the Prince pulled away and smoothed down the skirt of Rey’s dress. 

‘You will make your decision when you are free of my blood.’ 

Rey groaned and she began to walk back through the hedges. ‘By that time the decision will be the Duke’s.’ 

He took hold of her wrist, and she spun around quickly, frowning, though his expression was darker than she had expected. ‘You are not his property. He is your subject, not your king.’ 

‘Then what does that make you?’ 

His jaw flexed and his brow furrowed, seemingly becoming lost in the question. ‘For now, I am simply yours. I am too weary to play politics, not now.’ 

She stepped toward him then, reaching to his face and she held his jaw in both hands, meeting his eyes with ferocity. ‘Then don’t say later, don’t say not yet.’ 

The words eased his expression and he snorted softly, reaching to her hand, pulling it from his cheek and kissing her palm. ‘A few more hours, I will come to you just before dawn. You do not fear what the Vampire Council would have to say?’ 

‘My blood has been spilled and you have fed on it, I think it is too late to care.’ 

He smiled and pressed another kiss against her lips, quick and decisive, before he disappeared, leaving her in the garden. 

Rey went to the library, thinking of nothing but the Prince and her own desire. She would hold him to his promise of a few hours. Though he was right, the veracity of her lust was gently simmering away as time went on, and left her with a warm fullness in her stomach. It reminded her of eating sweet angel cake with warm milk as a child. Eating human food was almost a foreign memory, but the association she had to it made her lie back on the chaise in the library and simply look at the stars painted across the ceiling with a smile on her face. 

Zoe brought her a small glass of blood as dinner and Rey ordered her and most of the servants away for the remaining hours of the night. She went back to her rooms alone, undressed alone and sat at the end of her bed in a simple navy nightgown. Rey felt strangely normal again, and the compulsion to lie writhing on the sheets had momentarily died as she looked at the clock. It was an hour before sunrise, and the Prince had not come as promised. 

Thinking to find him herself she stood and moved to the door, though when she opened it, the Prince was standing on the other side of it.

‘The young are always so impatient.’ 

She narrowed her eyes at him, though he smiled and pressed a kiss to the edge of her mouth. ‘Did you send your staff away?’ His tone was full of amusement. 

‘Yes.’ 

‘Good.’ 

Rey looked at him, still outside her open door, still wearing the red banyan. There was a tiredness to his face she caught. ‘What have you been doing?’

‘Catching up on the world.’

‘You could have asked me.’

He smirked and entered the room, closing the door behind him. ‘You are too much of a distraction.’

‘Are you free to be distracted now?’

He nodded and his eyes skimmed her body, starting from her bare legs, to the silk that wrapped her torso, to her shoulders and then to her face; the shimmer of gold still on her lids and cheeks; and rouge still on her lips. 

‘Did you know the King could walk in the sun?’ the Prince started, moving forward and leading Rey towards her ottoman at the end of her bed. He sat her there, swinging her long legs over his knees, and his hands set to drawing patterns along her skin. 

Rey frowned. ‘No, the books haven’t said anything like that. Surely that’s not true?’ 

‘It was a well kept secret. It might have caused issues if it were to get out.’

‘But you knew?’

He nodded, hands sliding up the outside of her thigh. She scooted closer to him, the hem of her nightgown riding up so her bare backside was on the velvet cushion. It would have taken him little effort to touch her. 

‘I’ve been wondering for years in that stone prison whether I took that from him too.’

Rey’s eyes widened and he grinned. 

‘I thought,’ he began, leaning towards her, ‘that we could test it together.’ 

She frowned, but didn’t move away, instead drew herself closer so that her arms could wrap around his shoulders. ‘We could perish.’ Then she realised what he was saying. ‘You want me to drink from you again?’

‘Yesterday will not be the last time you taste my blood, you must know that.’ 

Rey looked at him carefully, tracing the lines and edges of his features with her gaze. He gave little away in his expression, though his eyes were as warm and truthful as they were honey in colour. 

‘You said I had not felt the full force of your blood’s influence.’

He nodded, and seemed to leave it open to her to make a decision as he watched her carefully, his fingers drawing high on her thigh. 

‘Just as long as you take responsibility for what happens after,’ she murmured. 

The Prince grinned and he reached for her, though she pulled away from his searching lips. ‘Give me one thing in exchange.’

‘Whatever you want.’ 

‘Your name.’

‘My name?’ he echoed, almost as if he’d perhaps forgotten it himself. 

She grinned. ‘Has that been lost to time too?’

‘Perhaps, though I’ve grown accustomed to being called by title. Ben. Call me Ben.’ 

Rey grinned and nodded, whispering his name against his lips as she kissed him and climbed into his lap. 

Her fingers undid the belt on his banyan and it fell from his shoulders when they eventually moved to the bed. The Prince laid out against the mattress, Rey grinding down onto him as she pushed the hem of his shirt over his stomach. 

He had the muscles of a fighter; someone who had trained day in and day out, and she saw silk white scars across his torso forever inked there before he’d been turned. Her fingers and eyes studied them and he watched her as she pushed the white material away and then eventually over his head.

Rey leant over and kissed him from his navel to his chest, and he shuddered when she did so. It made her smile as she continued, pressing gentle kisses against his nipples, her teeth yearning to bite and breach skin. 

His hands drew to her thighs, massaging them before he flipped them over. Rey began to complain, though she drew silent as she finally felt him hard against her. Pressed between her thighs, the cotton of his trousers soaking in her arousal. 

The Prince’s eyes closed tight at the sensation and he reached to pull her nightgown away but ended up ripping it down the middle. Rey laughed and he watched the gentle movement of her chest as her breasts were exposed to him. 

‘Without even a drop of my blood to set you off?’ Rey smirked. He narrowed his eyes at her, unamused, though she only laughed harder. ‘What? Is it not my turn to tease you?’ 

‘Would you rather I bite you, then?’ He asked, nose drifting across her throat, and then his lips kissing the thin skin there. The Prince looked into her face, their eyes meeting as a hand slid from her stomach and up to her chest. A thumb dragged at the skin beneath her breast and Rey held back a groan of approval. 

‘Only because it’s fair,’ she murmured once he’d started tasting the skin of her throat, sucking on the flesh, making blood rise to the surface, bruise and then disappear as she healed. 

He chuckled, finding her reasoning weak, though he did bite her, not enough to draw blood, but enough that she squirmed against him, trying to grind herself on him as he then roughly gripped her breast. Her eyes drew to the ceiling as he teased her, lowering his face for his tongue to soak her nipple while the other was flicked and coaxed into a peak by his thumb and forefinger. 

‘Please,’ she murmured, half-begging, knowing that he was teasing her once more. 

A hand fell from her chest to between her legs and he pushed two fingers inside of her, making her clench and tighten her hold on his shoulder. 

‘Don’t deny me.’ Though her voice was tight, the threat was clear. 

He chuckled, kissing her to distraction, until he was on his back again and she was pulling at his trousers, not caring if she ripped them. They were only half way down his legs when she sunk down onto him, so quickly that they both groaned and her nails drew gashes across his shoulder and chest, which bled and then closed. 

‘So impatient,’ he chuckled, leaning up towards her, his fingers pushing her hair from her face and his lips meeting hers.

They kissed slowly, languidly, Rey barely moving, just gently swirling her hips and enjoying the unfamiliar but satisfying feeling of being full. Her nails drew red lines over his skin haphazardly and she could only think that she’d waited more than a hundred years for this, for him. It was a thought that stirred up rage in her that was only pushed aside when his lips moved from her lips, to her cheek to her jaw and then to her neck as the Prince gently set them in motion, his hands lifting her and then pulling her back down over him. 

Rey allowed herself to be turned onto her back again and his pace grew, and her legs tightened over his hips as he pushed into her. Their pleasure built, becoming more solid and focussed as they continued, neither wanting to be the one to go over first. 

As their rhythm grew more erratic, their kisses turned messy, their groans and begging growing louder. Rey broke first, her teeth sinking into the meat between the Prince’s shoulder and neck, and she cried out as his sweet blood spilled into her mouth. 

The Prince groaned, blood flowing freely from him and him returning the favour as he pulsed inside of her, the pair falling into a tangle of limbs and the air filling with the tang of their sacred blood. 

‘Are you sated?’ He asked, his lips tracing the bite at her neck, painting them red.

‘For now,’ she returned, eyes wide and on the ceiling. Her sight was different, more exact and her orgasm felt thick and everlasting. Her cunt throbbed, clenching for more, wanting more and she touched there, drawing her fingers through his spend and bringing it to her lips, tasting him. It was sharper than blood, tangy on her tongue and it filled her body with more heat.

She felt set alight. The sun was due to rise at any moment and she wanted to be out there; she wanted to challenge the sun itself.

The Prince was watching her in silence, enraptured by her and when she reached for him, he kissed her again and again. 

‘The sunrise,’ she managed as he sucked another ephemeral bruise against her throat. 

They managed to get out of the bed, letting each other go for a moment while the Prince pulled on his banyan and Rey took out a robe. The pair then stumbled through the palace, stopping continuously to kiss, for the Prince to fuck an orgasm out of her with his fingers, with his mouth, until they reached the doors to the gardens.

He reached for the handle, finding resistance and instead knocked it from its hinges and allowed a slither of burgeoning light to slip through. Rey put her hand to it and felt no pain, just that familiar warmth she had begun to forget. 

The Prince stepped through immediately, and when no cry came, Rey followed after, until they both stood under the awning, the sun gently erupting over the horizon.

He took her hand, leading her through the garden and into the maze and they watched as the sun drew higher and higher across the sky, their mouths agape and their fingers clasped. When they turned to each other, the Prince’s eyes were golden in the light, and the sunlight warmed caramel against Rey’s skin. 

‘I’m yours,’ Rey murmured finally. ‘If you’re mine, I’m yours, Ben.’ 

His eyes closed, seemingly basking in the light and then he kissed her again, the pair of them spilling against the warm, dewy grass, groaning each other’s names as they met the sunrise. 


End file.
